


A Little Death Never Hurt Anyone

by bluecyclops



Category: Original Work
Genre: But its just pot so.. you know, Canon Gay Relationship, Drug Use, F/F, Fluff and Angst, Gay, Gay Male Character, M/M, Multi, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Romance, Slow Burn, Underage Drinking, just preparing you for that, this is gonna have alot of angst
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-13
Updated: 2017-08-22
Packaged: 2018-12-14 19:10:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,057
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11789589
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluecyclops/pseuds/bluecyclops
Summary: Ryleigh gets far more than he asked for when walking home from a Halloween party. He can't change whats in the past, he can only hope to fix his problems in the future.





	1. It Was Just a Party

Waking up to a warm kiss on the cheek and his boyfriend, Ethan, lazily wrapped around him has always been Ryleigh’s favorite way to wake up. He's never exactly been one for waking up in the mornings as is, he would much rather sleep for the rest of his life as opposed to getting up and needing to do things with his life. Things such as attend high school and work at the run down dollar theater that was only about a fifteen minute walk from his home. 

However with Ethan, waking up was nice because that meant Ryleigh would get to see the most important person in his life. Getting to see his beautiful heterochromatic eyes, and his unruly jet black hair that always seemed to be tied back, was the best part of Ryleigh’s day. Ryleigh thought himself lucky that he was able to see all of the moles that littered Ethan's face along with the rest of his body. Although they made Ethan upset because he wished for clear skin, Ryleigh found them stunning. 

Waking up with Ethan around always put Ryleigh at ease. Yet, that’s not how the teenage woke up on the cloudy saturday morning of october fourteenth. The teen opened his eyes and looked up at the grey sky, the clouds seemed heavy, like they had been there the night before, however if Ryleigh remembered correctly, the night sky was clear and it was supposed to be clear skies all weekend. Sitting up Ryleigh brushed his strawberry hair our of his face, a dull numbness seemed to be all he could feel as he sat on the side of the seemingly empty street just outside of the small town of Oakwood Hills where he lived. 

There was a moment of confusion as to why he’d awoken on the side of the road rather than in his own bed. He pulled his gaze away from the long stretched out road when a small wooden cross stole his attention. The cross had been painted a pale purple, with a few roses laying in front of it.

Dread hit Ryleigh like a bus as he read the familiar name hand printed onto the cross in his younger sister’s handwriting ‘In loving memory of Ryleigh Berns’. He was fighting to breath as he was suddenly hit with memories of glaring lights, blaring music, the shrill sound of teenagers yelling and the horrible stench of weed.

He’d gone to what was suppose to be one of the biggest parties of the year, this year’s halloween party. No one was going to be partying on the actual day of halloween, a tuesday, so it had to be moved up to a sooner date. After all, not many kids could get away with skipping school in the middle of the week without any repercussions from their parents. Ryleigh was very much in this same boat. Hell, the eighteen year old had had to sneak out of his house in the first place, he had to convince his sisters to cover for him, telling their parents that he was sick and sleeping.

The party was full of loud noises, intoxicated teens, and some of the stupidest costumes Ryleigh had ever seen. Even though this was a halloween party, the teen didn’t dress up in the slightest, in fact he looked more like himself than he had in quite some time. The redhead sported his favorite denim jacket, and then a white tee and his only pair of jeans. Most of the freckled teen’s time had been spent sitting in a relatively small group of people, passing around a bong and laughing as some of his classmates would cough and lose just about all of the smoke they had just inhaled.

Ryleigh had even had a few drinks as well, or, he’d tried drinking. Unfortunately for the host, Ryleigh would get sick of the taste of beer about half way through each drink. Thus he made a habit of abandoning his half full bottles around the house for someone else to deal with.

He had been rather bummed out that Ethan had stayed home, do to him having a debate meet early the next morning. Normally his boyfriend would be Ryleigh’s ride home from these sorts of things, and the thought of not getting to drive home with him nearly kept Ryleigh from even attending the party. However Ethan insisted he go, he hadn’t wanted to be the reason Ryleigh had stayed home, as he knew how much his boyfriend enjoyed parties. the redhead was now dependant on a close friend of his, Jean, to drive him home. 

Much to Ryleigh’s annoyance the pink haired, ‘punk rock’ girl was passed out in the bed of the party host’s parents’ bed, alongside a few others, all curled up into a group of soon-to-be hung over teens. So rather than wake his friend, Ryleigh had figured if he wanted to get home and not get caught the next morning, he would just have to get home the same way he got to the party.

Walk.

His house was only a half hour walk from the party. As a matter of fact he felt safer this way, after all he would be on a relatively quiet road. Only having to walk through a few suburbs and past his high school, and then he’d be home. Safe and sound. Not to mention it seemed like a far better option than calling his parents. In all honestly if Ryleigh had to pick between letting a drunk teen drive or getting caught by his parents, the freckled teen would without a doubt pick the drunk driver.

Ryleigh remembered how clear the night sky was and how bright the moon had been, lighting up his way fully even when there were no light posts to do so. He remembered the crisp air, and the crunch of the leafs as he stepped on them. He remembered sending a good luck text to Ethan, along with far too many kiss emojis for him to even remotely pass as sober. He also remembered the bright headlights of a car, he remembered the sound of crushing bones and the taste of blood.

Then.. well… he couldn’t remember what happened next. All he knew was that he was conscious now, in spite of all of the evidence pointing to him being dead. He couldn’t help but think this meant that he had some type of unfinished business, despite knowing there was something he had to do, he had no clue as to what that ‘something’ could be.

Ryleigh let out a shaky sigh as he looked down the road once more, well, he supposed it was time to go home.


	2. School is literally hell

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What better way to celebrate your death than going to school, a place you'd said you'd rather die than be.

Ryleigh wasn't even halfway through his journey home by the time he’d passed by his high school. If he had died any other day it would have been no surprise to see the school parking lot full of cars, as if it had be any regular day of the week. 

This couldn't have been right. After all, he’d died on a Friday night. A Friday night that was, last night. A Friday night where nearly half of the student body had gotten wasted. There was no possible way those cars were those belonging to his classmates, it just didn't add up. 

Walking closer Ryleigh saw none other than Jean’s old pickup truck, the one he should have been driving in last night. Or at least, he thought it was last night. However having known Jean his entire high school career,he knew that she would have just skipped school even if the party had been on a weeknight, which it wasn't.

This meant one of two things. Either the after life was going to include attending Oakwood Hills High with all of his classmates. Or Ryleigh hadn't come back as soon as he had thought.

Ryleigh’s second theory made a bit more sense to him, such as why he hadn't woken up to some kind of crime scene, and how the cross had already been placed. Judging by the fact that Jean was still in highschool, plus out the weather hadn't seemed to change Ryleigh guessed he'd only been gone for around a month or so.

Ditching his original plan to go home, the teen figured a quick look around the highschool wouldn't hurt. Perhaps he could check on how his sisters were doing, and Ethan, Ryleigh couldn't help but feel a binge of guilt as he thought of how he'd left his boyfriend alone to face the world.

He made his way through the doors of the school, it felt weird just walking through them rather than opening them, though he was quite impressed at how easy it was. The freckled teen walked through the hallway, looking into classrooms hoping to see his loved ones. Hoping even more that they were doing ok without him.

The first person he saw was one of his little sisters, Kay, she was in her AP English class, surrounded by juniors rather than the sophomores in her grade. She looked like a wreck. Her naturally frizzy hair was pulled back into a sloppy bun, she was wearing pajama pants and one of Ryleigh’s old tee shirts he would let her use when she needed to dye her hair. He'd never seen her out of the house looking like this before, sure on the weekends when they would just sit and watch TV all day she would wear clothes like this, but never outside of the house.

Ryleigh walked towards his sister, wanting to hug her and tell her he was alright, he wanted to put her mind at ease as she looked far from it right now. He stood next to her desk not sure if he should reach out to embrace her or if it would be better to just stay put. 

Before the redhead even got a chance to figure out what he was going to do, the school bell rang. Kay slowly put her things away before standing up and seemed to look right through her older brother, her eyes were glossy and bloodshot, it was obvious she was attempting to keep from shedding any tears in front of her classmates. The green eyed girl walked right through her older brother and onto her next class, leaving the eldest of the Berns children by himself in the classroom, save for the teacher and a few stragglers.

He turned to leave the classroom but before he got the chance to exit, someone had caught his eye. 

Someone was looking right at him, and when hed made eye contact Ryleigh felt a bit more than uncomfortable. He was much shorter than Ryleigh, with chin length black hair, he sported an old sweater and multiple bruises that had had a half-assed attempt of being covered. Ryleigh had seen him around before, though he'd never made any attempts of talking with the boy. After all he was a grade lower than Ryleigh, they didn't share any classes, and most importantly, this kid was known to be crazy.

His name was Isaac Peters, and he would often be seen muttering to himself in the back of classrooms. Ryleigh had even seen it a few times. In the hallways on the way to class or in lunch, he would watch the brown eyed boy talking to himself. Isaac was also known to have a bark far worse than his bite, and from what Ryleigh had heard Isaac had started quite a few fights that he couldn’t back himself up in. 

The fact that Isaac’s gaze seemed to be glued to Ryleigh didn't make him feel the least bit better. Quickly the ghost teen made his way out of the room, trying to get away from the awful staring. However once in the hallway, the realization that nobody could really see him was back. This truth was brought back to him by a few students walking right through him.

After coming to the conclusion that Isaac hadn't actually be looking at him, rather at something behind him. Ryleigh was off to find his boyfriend. Hopefully he could somehow communicate with Ethan. Tell him how sorry he is for leaving, or just, at the very least, that he loves him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so so much for reading, if yall have anything yall wanna say I'd love to rea comments ♡ thank you again for reading I hope to have the next chapter out sinner than this one

**Author's Note:**

> I really hope you enjoy this, I've been working on this series for a while and i hope to have the next chapter out soon!
> 
> Please leave comments and kuddos, they really help me keep going!


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